We’d been wanting to try the new Sidcot Arms since it opened a couple of months ago. I’d heard it was nicely done up, with a good menu that was cheaper than The Woodborough Inn - the very nice pub down the road in Winscombe which is run by the same owners as The Sidcot Arms now is. I’d also heard it was good for kids as you could eat there earlier in the evening.
Our eldest had had a big week and we were going to be driving along the A38 after this cricket County Trial in Taunton on Sunday, so we spontaneously thought we’d give the Sidcot Arms a go. It was also so hot and we’d had such a busy weekend I liked the idea of not having to cook and getting everyone to bed on time.
I’d tried to book a table as we left Taunton, but their website doesn’t let you book for the current day. That’s understandable but some messaging to that effect would be nice - instead the calendar just kinda doesn’t work and you’re left assuming it’s probably because it’s too short notice.
Also, crucially, I’d checked the menu before even mentioning this idea to my husband. And I’d been pleasantly surprised! Our eldest always wants to order from the adult menu and as this was “his day” I was pleased to see a lasagna was £11, a burger was £13, beef and ale pie was £12, and a chicken curry was £11.50. Or he could have, again from the adults menu, a pizza with up to 3 toppings for £11.
Slow service
We arrived at 5:30, and I went in to ask if they had space. A really nice young guy behind the bar said they had plenty of tables for 6 so if we didn’t mind an empty space (we’re a 5) we were welcome to come in. So I beckoned everyone in from the car.
From arriving on the premises at 5:30, we got served food at 6:25. It felt like a very long hour! Admittedly my husband and son went to the loo as soon as we were shown to our table and the front of house guy said he’d give them a minute before taking our drinks orders, but it felt like quite a while before he came back - and then before our drinks made it over - and then before our food order was taken. The food itself had a bit of a wait I guess, but I don’t think it was weirdly long and it wouldn’t have felt like an issue at all if it hadn’t been probably the best part of 30 minutes before our food order was taken.
Placing our food order however, was the worst part of my experience there because to my horror, the menu we were given had much higher prices than the menu I’d seen online. Suddenly lasagna was £15, burgers started from £17, steak (rather than beef, to be fair, but I wonder if it is actually different ingredients?) and ale pie was £15, and there was no curry. The pizzas were now £15 for ham and pineapple.
As that was one of the first things that happened when we arrived, this did cloud the whole rest of my visit. Looking into it when we got home, we found that if you Google them, their website comes up with a quick link to their Menu (not from a Google icon - from an actual page of their website that’s still hosted on their website that Google can still find so as far as Google is aware, there’s nothing out of date about it), you get to the one I found. When you visit their website and navigate to a menu from there, you see the new one. So they need to take down the old one so that Google stops indexing it, and if anyone clicks on it they’ll go to a 404 or better still - be redirected to the new one.
So yes, we could have left once we’d seen the more expensive menu, but you try telling 3 kids who’d been really good all day and deserved a treat that actually we were going to have to leave to have beans on toast at home. We didn’t have the heart.
There also was no drinks menu. The menu was a laminated A4 print out, not branded / designed in any way, with no reference to drinks. There was a wine menu, but as this was a restaurant not a pub I found it weird to not be able to browse what beer they had or be able to guide the kids to a carton or glass depending on how the prices looked. I immediately felt like I was ordering blind on the drinks front, potentially running into big bills, and paying more than I’d expected to on food. When my oldest 2 asked for Diet Coke, I said “the smallest size please”… the oldest protested and he had just spent 2 hours running around a stuffy sports hall in 30 degree heat so I said ok, he’s earned a normal size but his little sister should have the smallest size available and the guy serving just - well didn’t say much. He said he’d get “regular” and I’m just not comfortable with the word “regular”. Isn’t “regular” what they say in fast food places when they don’t want you to order “small”?
Overall I felt like our main waiter / front of house guy was kind but very laid back with a dry sense of humour which left us a little uncomfortable to ask for a drinks menu, or to really clarify what sizes Coke came in (and he offered no more info than a kinda nod intended to provide reassurance and the word “regular”).
We were in a very nice dining room that’s open to the bar, and could be open to more areas if large wooden doors were opened up (but it’s nice the way they keep the space spacious but small at the same time), but the chandelier over our head started flickering. And the other light in the room. We tried to ignore it for a while but it was like sitting under a strobe - albeit an intermittent strobe. So I asked if we could move or they could turn the light off, and they said they’d adjust the dimmer. But this then started a lot of calling to someone out the back who kept turning the dimmer off, or completely bright. We were insisting off was absolutely fine and a safer bet than - well, any other setting really, because we didn’t want to need to ask an awkward question again. But our comments on this just weren’t acknowledged… I appreciate they probably wanted to leave the light on, as it would be a tiny bit dark without it, and darker still for those further from a window. But it could have been handled a lot better with just more words - we could have felt “heard” if they’d said “ah thank you, let’s see if we can adjust it and then if we can’t we’ll turn it off for you”. Instead we had a period of various flickering, thinking this issue wasn’t going to be resolved, and no acknowledgement of our request to just leave it off (or move tables).
Food at the Sidcot Arms
When the food arrived, it looked very lovely. A good looking risotto (x2) with lots of cheese on top, a big pizza, and good sized children portions (there’s a £6 children’s menu), although the thimble full of beans was maybe a little small - smaller than a ramekin, more like the sort of silver dish you might have ketchup or mayo in. All of the kid’s options came with fries (or some had a choice of mash) but when our 3 year old placed his own order he said “chips”. Now, to him, any long thin piece of fried potato is a chip, so I didn’t think anything of it. But when their food came he had chunky chips and my daughter had, well more normal chips - so I guess, fries. And I think that showed a really nice attention to detail by the dry-but-probably-kind front-of-house guy.
Overall the food was nice, although it was quite greasy. I don’t often have risotto, so maybe it’s normal to have pools of oil on the top and in the bottom of the bowl. But then I noticed my son’s plate with one piece of pizza removed and saw how much grease/oil there was on that plate, and how soggy the bottom of the piece of pizza he was holding was. So it was all very tasty, and eating out is rarely healthy, but this did feel like it was perhaps more unhealthy than it needed to be. The sausage and chips was all good though, and the only problem with the goujons was that they were a bit peppery - or “spicy” - for a 7 year old. And I guess quite dry, but kids menu goujons usually are. Because we’d waited a long time between getting drinks and even placing our food order, she didn’t have much drink left by the time she got to her peppery goujons (which she’d been saving for last) and I wasn’t feeling like I could easily ask for tap water. So we cut off the coating, and promised her some water as soon as we got back to the car. Oh! And we also lost our ketchup part way through the meal when another table asked for some so the guy seeing to us took ours, and my son was sorry to see it go as he kinda wanted some more for his pizza. We were the only 2 tables out of 6 or so eating at that point (in that area) so it wasn’t like there wasn’t more somewhere else to go round.
The verdict
Sometimes I drag the kids and my husband to places just so I can write a review. That really wasn’t the case this time, I really hadn’t intended to write anything about a quick stop off on the way home. But actually, I ended up feeling like there was quite a lot to say! Mainly that they need to delete their old prices from their menu, stress that good customer service often means a few more words than the bare minimum (no matter how well intentioned) and the service needs to be a bit quicker. It used to be a Brewer’s Fayre and we hadn’t been for years because the quality of the food was really poor, so we were happy that it had changed hands, and into the hands of a company who can run a very nice pub (the Woodborough)… but based on tonight we probably won’t go back for a while. Maybe just for drinks on a sunny evening to look at the view, as you can see for quite a long way from their terrace.
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